Searching for the original portrait of Afonso de Albuquerque – new revelations from the Viceroys Gallery of Goa

This paper is dedicated to the research undertaken to discover the original portrait of Afonso de Albuquerque from the Viceroys Gallery of Goa. Following a previous research which confirmed that the portrait exhibited at the National Museum of Ancient Art, in Lisbon is, in fact, the result of successive interventions over another Governor’s painting, the question arose whether the original portrait still existed among the remaining collection, in Goa. In the context of the project Old Goa Revelations, where a team of Portuguese and Indian researchers carried out, for the first time, a joint scientific study on portraits from this collection, it was possible to collect new data in this regard. Indeed, associating the results from multianalytical and multispectral examinations with historical and iconographic sources, the location of the lost portrait was finally revealed. It was discovered that the panel had been reused for the depiction of a later Governor.